


remember us this way

by wearethewitches



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Margaery Tyrell Lives, Past Child Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Redemption, Time Travel, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-27 21:18:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19797961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: When Tommen jumps out of the window, he wakes in the carriage on the way to Winterfell, in 298 AC. Immediately, events shift as Tommen comes to grip with his new reality and they will ripple.They will ripple.





	1. Chapter 1

The pain is staggering. There is a vice of sorts around his chest and Tommen cannot breathe because of it. He struggles to draw in air and there are hands around his wrists, a familiar set of arms drawing him to their bosom.

“Tommen, Tommen, my darling, shh, _shh-_ ” his mother attempts to soothe him, but why would Mother be here, in his rooms? Tommen beats at her ribcage, hearing confused tones and alert voices outside- outside where? Where is he? These are not the quarters of the King. _Where am I? What is Mother doing here with me?_

“What’s happening to him?” exclaims a familiar, reedy voice and that is what shocks Tommen to stillness, frozen with widened eyes as he lays eyes on Joffrey. His brother is here. Tommen inhales sharply, staring, remembering him all purple-faced and choking.

“Am I dead?” he asks, but the words can’t escape him in anything more than a whisper. They are still heard – but then the door to the carriage they are in opens, admitting another familiar face. Tommen does not hesitate before lunging, thinking, _he is safe, he has always been good to me, he will keep me from Mother’s madness here in the Heavens._

Arms wrapping around Ser Jaime’s neck, Tommen bursts into tears. He remembers the green fires that burst up, raging where the Sept of Baelor once stood and his poor, beautiful Margaery’s death. In his sorrow, he hopes he sees her again – surely the Gods would let him leave this spiritual realm for another, where the Tyrell’s live.

“Prince Tommen, whatever is the matter?” Ser Jaime – _for he is not my uncle, he cannot be my uncle now, not in my head where I know he is my father; the rumours were always true, they can’t have been anything else_ – lifts him up, exchanging a confused look with Cersei as Tommen blubbers and whines, arms pulling tighter around his neck. Two hands – _two hands!_ – hold him, one pulled taught around his legs and the other rubbing his back soothingly.

With the door open, Tommen can feel the cool night air, crisp like winter. He can’t stop himself from crying and it worsens as he remembers his last moments, of rushing to meet the ground and the blackness of fainting from fright before he met it. _Margaery, my Margaery_ , he thinks – but then he hears another voice, one strong and rough like gravel that he cannot help but recognise too.

“What’s going on? What’s wrong with my son?”

 _Father,_ Tommen thinks, stunned. _He is here in our Heaven, too?_

“Your Grace, he woke in fright – nothing we do is helping,” Ser Jaime says helplessly, turning around. Tommen sees into the carriage again, where his mother with her long blonde hair sits in her night-clothes along with Joffrey and- _and-_

“Myr-Myrcella?” Tommen hiccoughs, staring at her. “Are you dead, too?”

Myrcella is young and beautiful, with rosy cheeks and golden ringlets; when Tommen speaks to her, emerald eyes so like his own turn confused and frightened.

“I am not dead, Tommen – why would you say that?” she asks him, distraught. Her hands ring her blankets and Joffrey scowls at them both.

“No-one’s dead, imbecile,” Joffrey scoffs, “you had a dream.”

Behind him, King Robert comes up to him and prods Tommen’s shoulder sharply, gaining his attention. Robert is just as he remembers him – fat and beady-eyed, with a bushy black beard and a wide face.

“What did you dream of that has you waking up half the camp in the night?” he demands. Tommen reflexively tightens his hold on Ser Jaime, loosening it at the choked noises he makes. Swallowing large breaths, focusing on the hand rubbing at his back, Tommen starts with a trembling voice-

“I don’t have all night, boy,” Robert scowls, “Hurry up.”

“Don’t talk to me like that!” Tommen immediately replies, feeling the ghost of his grandfather at his back. _I am a King,_ he thinks, drawing himself up forcefully. “Don’t talk to me like that,” he repeats, calmer. Robert looks taken aback. “Wildfire burned down the Sept of Baelor and I jumped out of the Red Keep in grief. It was so far to fall that I fell unconscious halfway down.”

“ _Wildfire?_ ” Ser Jaime sucks in a breath. “Oh, what stories have you been read that you would dream of wildfire, my prince?”

Tommen rests his head briefly on Jaime’s shoulder, pressing indents into his forehead from the white-gold shoulder plates of his Kingsguard armour.

Robert grunts. “Falling from the Red Keep – _bah_. The Eyrie is taller. Afraid of heights? Afraid of _fire?_ ”

“Green fire,” Tommen mumbles. “It burned them alive. It burned them all.”

A shudder runs through his uncle-father, he who killed King Aerys. “That’s what _he_ said,” Ser Jaime whispers in return. “‘Burn them all’.”

“Wildfire everywhere,” Tommen says monotonously. He thinks of the burning bay, when his Uncle Tyrion destroyed Stannis’ fleet. The sky was green and it took weeks for it to die down. His stomach roils at the thought of Margaery among the masses, skin charred black atop red. _My Margaery_ , he thinks, before he pushes away from Ser Jaime, leaning sideways to abruptly vomit.

Ser Jaime and King Robert recoil. The contents of his stomach end up in the grass, splattering the carriage door. Tommen’s tears still run down his face when he finishes, feeling hollow and barren of life. _I want my queen and my cats,_ he thinks dully.

“Disgusting,” Joffrey mutters. “Mother, do we have to have him in the carriage? He’s ill!”

“Shut it, boy,” Robert snaps. “You and your sister will ride the horses tomorrow while your brother recovers – and don’t think I don’t know it’s you who’s telling him nasty stories about the Mad King’s reign!”

“But Father, I didn’t!” Joffrey whines, but Mother sooths him and tries to reason with Robert about them riding. Tommen decides not to listen, focusing on Ser Jaime as the knight takes out a pocket handkerchief and wipes his mouth for him, wandering off to the nearby campfire.

“What’s going on in that head of yours, my prince? You dream of fire and death,” Ser Jaime says, voice soft. He seats himself down on a log in front of the fire and Tommen curls up loosely in his lap. Ser Jaime orders a servant to get water and a pail – a good idea, for when Tommen starts throwing up again, his imagination running wild with gross depictions of his beloved burnt to cinders.

“Fire and death,” he repeats, after a while. He thinks of the Targaryen queen across the Narrow Sea. “Ser Jaime, what would happen if dragons came to Kings Landing? There must be more wildfire – there can’t just be the single cache, can there?”

“Dra- more than one? Of course there is, Tommen,” Ser Jaime’s voice croaks, barely more than a whisper. “Mad King Aerys wanted to burn Kings Landing to the ground. Forget dragons – a single act could have ignited them.”

Tommen twists further into Ser Jaime’s grasp, watching King Robert stomp his way over to the opposite side of the campfire, seating himself down and bellowing for wine. Ser Barristan is across the way, looking hearty and old. Tommen recognises more and more whom he sees; dead men, all of them.

“Good thing we’re dead, then,” Tommen mutters to his uncle, safe in the knowledge that this caravan of folk are unto the Gods; wildfire can no more harm them than dragons. “Wildfire only becomes more dangerous with time.”

But his uncle reacts strangely to this comment. There is a long, drawn out moment before he squeezes him tight and bursts into laughter. Tommen looks up at him in confusion.

“Uncle Jaime?”

“Ages- _ages_ ,” Ser Jaime cackles, but his face does not show joy nor happiness befitting his laughter. He clutches Tommen tighter to him, his lungs working hard. “Wildfire ages like wine. Who could have known?”

Across the fire, the King growls. “Kingslayer, what are you blathering on about?”

Ser Jaime only holds onto him tighter. “Wildfire, Your Grace – hundreds and hundreds of barrels beneath the Red Keep, the Sept of Baelor, all the streets of Kings Landing, including Fleabottom. Tommen here has informed me that it gains strength with age and I have been the willing fool, thinking it would become impotent in the seventeen years it sat there.”

 _Seventeen years?_ Tommen wonders, before Ser Barristan draws his sword, the crackling fire casting shadows across the gleaming steel. Around the camp, murmurs are spoken – more swords drawn.

“You kept this from us? From the King?” Barristan demands answers of Ser Jaime, who presses an apologetic kiss to Tommen’s head. “Or were you really that much of an idiot?”

“The latter, I’m afraid,” Ser Jaime says, wiping tears from his eyes, laughter abating. He continues quietly. “Good thing we aren’t in Kings Landing right now, eh? The Royal Family out of reach, in case of a terrifying explosion.”

“But leaving the _people_ undefended,” Ser Barristan curses. “ _Gods._ Your Grace, we must make haste to remove the wildfire, before it is lit.”

“Aye- aye, see it done. Awaken everybody. We make early for Winterfell for their ravens, forget waiting for sun-up. Kingslayer-” Robert stops, awkward. Over the fire, he looks hesitant and almost scared as he quietly says, “Always did wonder why you killed the pyromancer.”

He walks off abruptly, barking orders. Tommen looks up at the dark sky above, the moon half-hidden by cloud. White drifts down past his face and he goes almost cross-eyed trying to look at it, hand reaching up to touch the tiny crystal of snow flying through the air.

“Tommen,” Ser Jaime starts, solemn. “Tommen, do you know what you have done?”

“What have I done?” Tommen asks him, for as he goes over the conversation in his mind, nothing makes sense. That there is wildfire below Kings Landing was known – everyone here is _dead_. Why would they attempt to remove it from the tunnels?

 _Unless,_ Tommen thinks, _unless I am reliving my life. Am I- am I merely seven namedays?_ He balks at the idea. Though it might mean others are alive, his Queen has not met him yet – and probably thinks him but a young child. It’s awful to imagine such a scenario that Margaery does not greet him with a smile that crinkles at either side of her eyes, making them sparkle in joy. She is such a happy woman and an even better Queen.

 _I will hold out for her,_ Tommen swears to himself, even as his stomach rebels again as he remembers that it was not _him_ whom Margaery married first. She will be betrothed to his traitorous uncle, Renly, if she isn’t already and then after his death, Joffrey would discard sweet Sansa for her, too. Tommen is third in line – and third for King, too.

 _Third, third, third,_ he chants in his head. He is the third child, too, his mother’s third golden lion born of a crime that goes against the Gods. _My head be taken, if they find out,_ he thinks fearfully. _Or sent to the Wall. I am already changing the past just by ridding Kings Landing of wildfire!_

“Nephew-mine,” Ser Jaime murmurs, oh-so quiet. His hand rubs Tommen’s back and the young prince wonders if he would have been a good father, in another world. He knows that Ser Jaime can be kind. It is his mother who is the mad one.

“I want to ride into Winterfell,” Tommen says to him.

A chuckle. “Really? You’ve just been ill, my Prince.”

“I want to ride into Winterfell – on Joffrey’s horse,” he repeats, with an addendum. The look his not-uncle sends him is disbelieving. Tommen attempts to harden himself, straightening his face like his grandfather taught him. “Joffrey wants not to ride. I do. I was ill because my nightmares frightened me – not for some flu or plague.”

“…eloquent, my Prince,” Ser Jaime replies, “but I am not the one you need to convince.”

“Who, then?”

And his not-uncle smiles tightly, though his eyes twinkle slightly as he leans in to whisper.

“I’d start with the King.”


	2. Chapter 2

Joffrey’s horse is a tame beast with white hair and a braided mane, over fourteen hands high. Tommen, sat atop it, is at first wary of the height from its back to the ground. However, King Robert is watching him and he _must_ prove he can ride. He may have only ridden ponies before, but he can remember Joffrey’s horse – its behaviour was perfect, despite such an egotistical rider.

In the darkness of the early morning hours, snow wafting through the breeze to chill his face every time it touches him, Tommen looks to his faux-father in askance.

“I am on it.”

“That you are. You’re not complaining, either,” Robert says critically, before nodding. It is a Kingly nod, one that tells Tommen he has passed a test. Looking to his not-uncle, Tommen silently asks, _what now?_

Ser Jaime steps forwards, taking the reins and fixing Tommen’s grip on the saddle. “I will ride by you. If you feel unsteady, tell me and I will make sure the mare does not hasten your journey to the ground.”

“ _Move out!_ ” comes a shout. Tommen looks to see the King astride his own horse, moving onwards. Ser Jaime is quick onto his destrier, attaching Tommen’s reins to his own saddle, using a convenient buckle. They move out with the party and from his horse, Tommen realises how loud the party is, the snuffle of horses and the loud trundle of the carriage echoing eerily in the night.

“Are there bandits?” Tommen asks his not-uncle, whispering, “We’re loud.”

“If they’re awake at this time of day, we’ll welcome the fight,” Ser Jaime snorts, joined by a few jeers from the surrounding Kingsguard and camp followers – servants, stablehands, prostitutes and the like. It interests Tommen to find there are more camp followers than knights, even if the lordly folk look far more prestigious.

A silence falls, which seems right. Tommen still does not like the silence of the early morning dark, but he draws comfort knowing their group is large and fit to defend him. He sometimes even forgets he is but seven again, until he sees the dark hair of the King or his not-uncle’s gleaming curls, pulled back in a simple knot at the base of his head.

 _Mother would never let me wear it like that,_ Tommen thinks in the depths of his mind, feeling his heavy locks around his chin like a helmet. He wants them shorter – or pulled back like Ser Jaime’s. His mother always wishes to braid it or brush it till it shines. Tommen has always had that. But riding with his blood father makes him yearn for things he hasn’t before, like his fashionings and his habits.

_I could learn to ride better than I do, now. I could even become better at swordsmanship!_

A determined expression drifts across his face. When his thighs chaff from riding for hours on end, aching and eventually numbing, Tommen says not a thing. He knows his pain is clear – he even lies when Ser Jaime asks, concerned – but Tommen won’t let this new chance pass him by. He will be better. He _will_ be.

Winterfell is a dark blob on the horizon, that slowly becomes lit with fires and lanterns as they approach Wintertown. Tommen soaks it all in like a sponge, eyes flitting from house to house. Snows drift in large piles, even on the slushy roads and there are none homeless, that Tommen can see – not like in Kings Landing, where alleyways and ruins are rife with the poor. Margaery had taken him to see them – Margaery even took _Joffrey_ once, before.

“Ho there!” guards say when they approach the castle itself. “Who goes there?”

“The party of King Robert Baratheon, First of His Name!” Ser Barristan calls, voice echoing slightly. “Open the gate!”

“I would, ser knight, but Lord Stark only allows the gate to be opened at sunrise – it would wake the household, otherwise!”

“Wake them – this is the _King!_ Know your place!” Barristan shouts, chastising and angry. Tommen swallows, hearing faint arguments coming from behind the battlements, before a horn is blown, long, loud and clear. A moment later a large mechanical sound rings out, a metallic _shriek_ echoing through the morning.

Tommen – along with many others – winces at the noise, watching the large portcullis rise up ever so slowly, the large weirwood doors behind it opening.

“Gods, now I wish we hadn’t insisted,” Ser Jaime mutters, but Tommen is not listening, his attention caught on the burly Northman making his way towards the rising gate, scattered swordsmen at his back.

“Who holds the authority to open my home?” the voice of Ned Stark rings out, growling as he bangs his sword hilt against the still-rising portcullis. “We saw you approach from a distance – but who would ride the lands at this time of day?”

“Ned, you bastard – don’t you recognise me?” the King yells and the visible stutter in the Northman’s step is telling. King Robert rears back. “I’ve not changed _that_ much, you little shit!”

“…you’re fatter than I remember,” Lord Stark replies flatly, before stepping back. “It’s not even sunrise yet and you’d wake the valley? You’ll not be well received by the commonfolk.”

King Robert’s expression is grim. Tommen watches it flicker in the fire of their procession’s torches.

“How many ravens have you got available for Crownlands and Stormlands lords, Ned? It’s urgent – a horror was revealed on the road.”

“We have few – three for the Red Keep and another two for Dragonstone and Storm’s End.”

“Fuck,” King Robert cusses, before getting off his horse and handing the reins off to Kingsguard, walking up to the portcullis, which is high enough to let a man walk under it now. Swiftly, Ser Barristan follows – but Ser Jaime stays with Tommen, silently directing the stablehands to deal with the abandoned mounts.

King Robert walks off swiftly with Lord Stark, the men disappearing into the courtyard of Winterfell while the rest of the procession wait for the gods-cursed screeching of the rising portcullis to cease. When it finally does, Tommen wonders at how they had not heard it every morning the last time around – was he really that deep a sleeper?

The horses are led into Winterfell’s heart, Tommen determined to ignore his mother when she calls out for him, to get him inside. He clutches his horse’s reins, following his not-uncle towards the stables. Ser Jaime glances back at the Queen, when Joffrey starts to whine.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to join your mother, my prince? It is warmer inside and you would be fed your morning meal.”

Tommen shakes his head, though he dearly wishes to lie down on the ground and groan. His thighs hurt and the skin there is surely weeping. Quietly, he follows his not-uncle into the stables and hands it off to a waiting stablehand, a young Northern boy with brown hair and green eyes, who looks as if he’s only just woken up.

“This is my brother’s horse,” he says to the boy, “Prince Joffrey’s. I am- I am Prince Tommen Baratheon and this horse is called Theodus the Swift. He is temperate and good. Please take care of him.”

“Yes- yes, milord- your highness-” the boy stutters, before Ser Jaime puts a hand on Tommen’s shoulder and directs him away.

“Inside with us both, now,” Ser Jaime murmurs. “You’ve done very well at impressing the King, Tommen.”

“Good,” Tommen whispers.

They enter the castle. It is dark and shadowy, but surprisingly warm. Tommen remembers a story told to him when he came here the first time: hot springs deep below Winterfell are pumped through the very walls, heating the home of the Stark’s from the inside-out. In the dark, Tommen thinks Winterfell may be haunted – the air is thick with something, something that makes his very bones tingle.

_I do not belong here._

It rings through him and he knows it to be true. Lannister’s have taken Northern brides before, but only once in living memory was one a Stark: the wife of Lann the Clever, himself. She was said to have had the green eyes that House Lannister calls their own, hundreds of years later and a fiercer wit than even her husband.

 _A weak line, but true,_ Tommen thinks. He holds his not-uncle’s hands, eyes closing shut tight. A strange magic brought him here when he died – he would be an idiot not to believe in it, now. He thinks himself foolish to try, but he imagines that Stark woman seated on Lady Lannister’s chairs. She would look like Ned Stark, except her chin would be like the Queen’s and her eyes emerald green.

He thinks, projecting, _blood of the Stark’s, I have the blood of the Stark’s from the days of King Lann-is-here, I have the blood of the Stark’s._

Tommen stumbles when his foot catches on a loose floor tile. He trips and falls, his hands becoming bloodied as Ser Jaime hauls him back up.

“My prince, be more careful,” he chastises gently, stopping them both and turning Tommen’s hands over. They bleed gently. Ser Jaime takes a handkerchief from his sleeve – _Mother’s favour,_ Tommen recognises, knowing that red silk with its golden embroidery. _J &C_ is written inside the mouth of a roaring lion in the corner and the lion becomes stained, as Tommen’s not-uncle dabs his wounds.

“…will I ever be fostered?” Tommen asks, the question coming to mind rather suddenly. He imagines running through Winterfell with little, lost Arya Stark and her brother, Bran, who he sparred with in the courtyard before his fall.

_His fall._

Tommen’s eyes go wide.

Ser Jaime is frowning. “Fostered? Your mother would never allow it.”

“I want to, though – is there not a boy my age, here?”

His not-uncle winces and further ahead, another knight guwaffs. “Speak these things to your mother, Prince Tommen; and I believe young Brandon is eight namedays, to your seven.”

“Oh,” Tommen says, thinking that no – his mother would not agree to foster him away, not even if he asked. To her, he is seven namedays old, merely a babe in her eyes. He recalls the King, though. _He would let me foster, here. I could even stop Sansa from going South!_

Invigorated by his plan, Tommen lets his not-uncle bind his worst hurt hand with the favour, before leading him along with their knightly companions to the Feasting Hall. Tommen finds it odd to have them following him – they’re Redcloaks, rather than Goldcloaks or Whitecloaks. He is the King- or rather, he _was_ the King. Tommen’s surprised to see his old guards, though, not used to them still being alive to protect him. Many were killed in the Battle of the Blackwater and later battles, sent off to war as generals in Joffrey’s name.

Mother bundles him into her arms when he arrives, but Tommen resists and shrugs her off, still remembering her with shorter hair and a madder psyche. This is the woman, who in a few short years would blow up the Great Sept of Baelor, _just_ to kill his Margaery.

_O Margaery, how I miss you._

“Your Grace,” a woman with hair like Sansa’s approaches, curtseying low. “Your rooms are being prepared in haste. Luckily, only the final preparations were to be done before your arrival. I dread our readiness for the Royal Convoy, had you arrived even a day earlier.”

“Blame my husband, Lady Stark. He insisted on riding here in the early hours of the morning, for some reason I have no knowledge of.”

Tommen frowns at her. “But you do know.”

Both women turn to stare at him, Lady Stark frowning even as his mother narrows her eyes, smiling prettily.

“Tommen, my sweetling – I do not know. What did your father say, my darling? He forced you to ride all that way, you must be so tired.”

Tommen stares. _You’re trying to manipulate me. I’m your **son**._ “I do not think I should say it, Mother. Father has gone off into his solar with Lord Stark. I do not want to tell anyone who might hear.”

“Was it frightening? Did it have to do with your nightmare?” Mother reaches out, pushing his curls behind his ear and Tommen steps back, flinching.

_Yes, yes it did._

“If you don’t know, then I will not tell you. I’m not a little boy anymore. Don’t treat me like a toddling child. I was the one who wanted to ride – _me_. I want to be like Uncle Jaime,” Tommen proclaims, staring at her. “Isn’t that want you want?”

To Tommen, all that matters is his mother’s face. He doesn’t expect to see the disapproval radiating from Lady Stark.

“…manners, my sweetling,” his mother says quietly, standing up straight. “You’re clearly exhausted. Go sit with your sister.”

Tommen clenches his teeth, the sort of treatment they’re giving him as a seven-namedays boy grating on him. “Yes, mother,” Tommen mutters, twirling around and stomping over to where Myrcella sits with her septa, yawning prettily. It feels strange, knowing he’s older than she is.

Joffrey has his head laid on his arms, snoring softly on the table. Feeling an urge to annoy his brother, Tommen pokes him in the side, digging his fingers into the space underneath his ribs in a way he knows _hurts._ Joffrey shoots up with a yell, falling back onto the floor, arms swirling wildly and his legs kicking at nothing.

Tommen giggles and he hears Myrcella’s bubbly laughter, too, at the sight of their enraged brother’s face.

“Why, you-” Joffrey glares at Tommen and in a surprising feat of speed, stands up and pushes Tommen back onto the floor, kicking at him. “Little mongrel!”

Crying out in pain, Tommen bites his tongue hard as his head knocks off the stone ground, blood filling his mouth. Unable to stop the tears from coming, Tommen bursts into tears, reaching up to cradle his head even as he curls there, on the floor, waiting for more blows to come. He feels another of Joffrey’s kicks before Ser Jaime is there, hauling his brother back with a short command of “ _Stop._ ”

Tommen waits for more, though, silently crying. He saw what happened to Sansa, he saw what their mother did to Margaery – and he remembers Joffrey’s cruelty, now and before. _My cats,_ Tommen thinks, recalling the poor kitchen tabby and her kitties.

Large, gentle hands curl around his shoulders, pulling him up from the floor to his feet. Tommen opens his eyes, not realising he’d even closed them and he squeaks at the sight of Sandor Clegane, the Hound. His scarred face is twisted and mutilated; is that what Margaery might have looked like all over, if she’d survived? Would her pretty, heart-shaped face be covered in scaly, grotesque skin that Tommen wouldn’t have been able to look at without his own heart jumping?

The Hound grunts. It sounds like an assurance. Tommen looks to Joffrey, who is being quietly berated by their not-uncle. Joffrey looks pale and – for once – regretful, in his own guiltless way. He looks like he regrets being _caught_.

Tommen knows what that means.

Reaching for the hands on his shoulders, Tommen gets the Hound’s attention again, whispering an order. “Don’t let him hurt me. Please.”

The Hound stares at him, a strange vulnerability flashing across his face before he nods sharply, stepping away to melt back into the throng of Kingsguard. Tommen’s heart beats wildly, wondering what will happen the next time Joffrey tries to abuse him.

“Tommen?” Ser Jaime calls out.

Tommen looks. “Yes?”

His not-uncle looks at him in concern, eyes flickering to his head. “Are you alright?”

“I-” Tommen starts, before swallowing, feeling something like a bruise forming. “I think so, yes.”

Ser Jaime’s expression is one of relief. “Good,” he says, looking back to Joffrey with a glare. “ _Good_.”

“He shouldn’t have touched me.”

“You should have _laughed_ , like your sister. Now, sit down and behave yourself.”

His brother retakes his seat, while Tommen hesitates on where to go. He does not want to sit with his brother, knowing he will be in a bad mood and to sit with Myrcella means the same. His mother is discussing the Royal party with Lady Stark and the Whitecloaks are spread evenly throughout the room, where they aren’t sitting at a table to his right.

But as he wonders where his place is, in the room, Tommen realises something else: no longer does it feel wrong for him to inhabit Winterfell. Rather than thinking _I do not belong here,_ Tommen thinks thusly.

_I am safe._


End file.
